At 11:09 AM 4/5/2011, Dave Mcneely wrote:
>I acknowledge that my report was "self reported," and one can take
>that for whatever he thinks it is worth.  But both _Consumer
>Reports_ and "Fuely" are making some sort of claim about objectivity
>and lack of bias.

Back when I had cars that were new enough for CU to include in their
reports I filled out the surveys.  All they want to know is how many
times you needed to have something fixed in the last year in each of
several categories, and what was your total cost of repairs that
year.  I think that's reasonably objective.  The price is that they
don't distinguish between major and minor repairs.  I think
subscribers tend to be believers who want to improve the data, not
puff their vehicle or make themselves look good (it's an anonymous
survey anyway). Each step is a 20% change in frequency; they're not
delicate little gradations.

That being said I've owned cars CU said were reliable but expensive
to keep running, reliable and inexpensive to keep running even though
individual repairs were expensive, and ones they said were extremely
unreliable but still with low-to-moderate overall repair costs ('78
Horizon), and they've always been right for my particular example,
including the category(ies) in question, and including the igniter
problems of mid '80s Toyotas which showed up on their little circles
and on my vehicles (both repaired free by dealer).

Yrs,
David